


Storm and Sunlight

by EPS (Lillian_Shepherd)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-17
Updated: 2012-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-31 08:17:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian_Shepherd/pseuds/EPS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sunny Spring day throws Doyle's memory repeatedly back to the stormy winter night months before, where he almost lost Bodie for good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storm and Sunlight

Sunlight strobed through overhanging leaves as Doyle steered the Capri down the maze of constricted lanes, shadowing the car's surface with kaleidoscopic patterns of green, bronze and gold. Spring had arrived late this year, but it had made a grand entrance, as if it had spent the long, wet winter titivating itself for the party. 

Doyle stole a quick glance at his passenger. Bodie's expression was serene, eyes half-slitted against the glare, but Doyle could see only the lines etched on too pale skin stretched over a new gauntness, reminders of three months of empathic pain, three months of straining his acting talents beyond reasonable limits to lend the reassurance of normality to a sick man, in spite of his own emotional turmoil. The need for that was over – but could he leave it behind? 

There was still no real answer. 

He felt, rather than saw, Bodie ease himself back in the seat, hearing the creak of stretching fabric. Diverting his attention from the road for an instant, he noticed that his companion's eyes had closed, the long eyelashes disappearing into the shadows above the cheekbones. 

"Tired?" 

"Ummm. A bit. Don't fuss, Ray." 

"It's not far now." 

 

"You've been saying that for the last ten minutes," Doyle snapped, peering out past the frenetically flapping windscreen wipers and trying to coax more speed out of the unfamiliar car as it roared down unopened motorway. 

Light shimmered on the solid wall of rain that retreated endlessly before them and from the waves of spray winging up from the wells as they swished down the lines drawn by the headlights on tarmac and water. 

The ancient engine was inaudible above the hammering rain, but Doyle knew it was taking more punishment than it could handle. 

Hell, all it had to do was to hold together for a few more minutes, until they had reached the construction site; if that hadn't vanished under the flood, that was. 

"Do you think Bodie's all right?" Jackson's voice was a dichotomy composed of concern and excitement. Doyle didn't need to look to know that he was leaning forward, one hand braced against the dashboard, face glowing with enthusiasm. 

Had he looked like that on his first mission for CI5, Doyle wondered. Now, he just felt old. 

"Yeah," he answered. "That one'll come through Armageddon with a grin on his face—" He broke off as a huge, horribly solid shape loomed out of the murk and dragged the wheel over until it locked. The car skewed sideways, tyres churning futilely in the water, spiralling across the tarmac as Doyle fought for control, until brakes and tyres and lack of road bounced it to a juddering stop. 

 

"Hellfire!" Bodie, jerked forward and out of his doze, instinctively put out a hand to save himself and barked it on the dashboard. Nursing it, he looked wildly about him, seeing nothing but a peaceful country road and Doyle's embarrassed face. "Bloody 'ell, Ray— is that any way to park?" 

"I'm sorry. There was this suicidal squirrel...and I was thinking about something else. Anyway, we're here." 

"Only just," Bodie grumbled, sucking his knuckles, but he was looking, with obvious approval, at their temporary home, as Doyle backed the car into the constricted, and very nearly vertical, drive. 

It was low and stone built, the red tiles of the roof patched with moss, a modern bungalow which looked as if it had poked its chimney through the cushions of apple blossom for a hundred years. Doyle was glad that he had packed his watercolours, though he hadn't touched a brush or a pencil in months. 

He watched anxiously as Bodie levered himself out of the car and leaned on the edge of the roof, curbing his impulse to offer assistance. Once he was sure that Bodie could stand without help, he reached across a dropped a pair of keys into his hand. 

"Go and let yourself in. I'll bring the bags." 

For a moment, Bodie's expression indicated that he might be considering protest, then he shrugged and moved towards the door, limping slightly. Doyle watched him until he disappeared into the house, then took the keys from the ignition and slid out into the noonday heat. 

 

Once out of the shelter of the car, the rain stung cold against their faces. Jackson gasped, but Doyle hardly noticed the shock. 

Drawing his gun, he steered the beam from his flashlight in a wide circle. It gleamed from a lifeless landscape of water, stone and piled-up earth, and the gusting wind carried the smells of tar and petrol, while its howl masked any other noise. 

Turning into the wind, Doyle splashed forward, peering along the torch beam. He could hear Jackson following, and the light from a second torch danced just behind his own. 

Tools and machinery lay abandoned in the mud between the earthworks, like the aftermath of a battle in an alien world. 

No guards. Sanders must have pulled out, cutting his losses, as soon as he realized that CI5 was closing in, even if it meant leaving valuable plant behind. 

But had he left anything else behind? 

Doyle tramped on, crossing and re-crossing his own path, examining every square yard of mud and stone, eyes straining to pierce the night and finding nothing.

The seconds expanded into minutes, each step an effort as he sank up to his ankles in the sodden ground, slipping and sliding in the mud, his shoes heavy with water, jeans chaffing at his ankles, his leather jacket reeking more strongly than the tar. 

He had had to put away his gun, and his torch kept slipping in hands which were slick with mud, collected when he had had to reach down to save himself from falling. 

"Ray?" Jackson, who had spurted forward to catch his arm, now hauled him to a halt. Doyle turned to glare at him – an intimidating figure, curls plastered to his skull, jaw thrust forward, breathing hard – who gave Jackson cause to hesitate. "Ray, look, we're not doing any good. We won't find anything until it's light, even if he _is_ here or, hell, Ray, if they've killed him they could have buried his body anywhere. Let's take the car and go for reinforcements." 

Doyle shook away the hand, shook away the common sense, and ploughed on into the darkness. 

Behind him, he heard Jackson swear, and increased his pace, hardly caring if the other man followed him or not. Speed-bred carelessness and, as he topped a ridge of newly dug earth, his feet disappeared from under him. 

He tried to dig in his heels, to claw at the clay with his free hand, but these efforts did not more than slow him a little as he slithered, first, down into a pool of freezing water. 

The first thing he realized, once the shock had faded, was that he had dropped the torch. For a moment, he panicked, then he saw the faint brown glow percolating through the muddy water, and scrabbled around until his fingers found rubber. After a futile effort to wipe the lens of his prize clean on his filthy pullover, Doyle floundered to his feet. The flailing beam picked out something large and yellow close at hand, and Doyle thankfully grabbed it, his hands encountering both the cold of metal and the comparative warmth of ridged rubber as he used it to haul himself onto the relative dryness of the mud bank. 

Once he felt a little more secure, he turned his attention back to the convenient handhold. As the circle of light played over the machine, it picked out recognizable details: tyres, cab, controls, radiator – but it took Doyle some time to fit them together in his mind into a recognizable shape. 

Some sort of muck shifter, he decided at last, lying on its side. 

On its side? 

Why the hell should it be—? 

Not bothering to complete the speculation, Doyle clambered uphill, sidling around the recumbent vehicle, the torch beam following its contours. A flash of blue against the yellow caught his eye, lying where the ground dipped a little.

Doyle froze, apprehension pumping ice into his blood. Only the torch beam moved, shifting over a dark-stained leather jacket and up to seek out horribly familiar features, half buried in the mud, a smooth cap of dark hair, blackened by rain... 

It was what he had been dreading all through the nightmare search. 

He had found Bodie. 

 

Doyle's search ended when he stepped through the sliding doors and out onto the blossom-starred flags of the patio at the rear of the cottage, where a tub of pink and white hyacinth spread heavy scent on the warm, still air, and threads of contrasting colour escaped from the green and magenta buds of early roses. Bodie was sprawled on a stone bench next to a clump of ball-budded peonies, legs stretched out in front of him, eyes closed, basking in the unseasonable heat. 

"Trust you to find a suntrap," Doyle commented, as he made his way to join him on the bench." I've put your case in the bedroom at the end of the corridor away from the front door. Want some lunch?" There was a glimpse of blue for a moment, then it disappeared again behind lowered lids. "No... Later, maybe." Something, perhaps a small note of strain hidden in the terseness, alerted Doyle. Over the last three months, he had developed a sensitivity to Bodie's feelings that had the power to unnerve him. 

"Legs aching?" he asked now. 

Bodie shrugged. 

Ignoring the expression of indifference, Doyle slid to the ground in front of his partner, and began to rub his hands gently along Bodie's thighs and calves, feeling for knotted muscle under the soft cord. 

 

Doyle ran his hands quickly over what he could reach of the half-buried body, tracing the familiar pattern of bone under muscle. Bodie's hips and legs were trapped beneath the toppled vehicle, pressed deep into the mud, where Doyle couldn't reach, but Doyle had to take the chance and lift Bodie's face form the muck and the water, straightening his twisted shoulders. 

"God almighty!" Doyle was startled to hear Jackson's voice behind him." Ray— Oh, Christ, is he still alive?" 

"Yeah. He isn't easy to kill. One leg's broken...maybe both. I can't be sure what other damage there is...We wouldn't dare move him, even if it was possible to get him out from under that thing. I'll stay with him. You get to a phone and get help." 

"But wouldn—?" 

Doyle looked at him for the first time. "Damn you, _move_!" 

He saw resolution strengthen Jackson's face. "I won't be long." With that single reassurance, the younger man turned into the night. 

Dismissing him from his mind, even before the sound of his splashing had died away, Doyle knelt in the mud and settled Bodie's head on his thigh. 

The rain increased in force, closing its curtains around Ray 

Doyle, narrowing his world to the familiar, bloodless face resting on his legs and the cold, squelching mud beneath him. 

 

The sun-warmed paving was hard and hot beneath Doyle's knees as he watched the darkening and lightening of the ribbed cloth under the strokes of his hands. 

"That help?" he asked, without looking up. 

"Some." 

"Tell you what: get stripped off, an' I'll give you a proper massage." 

"You don't have to take any trouble over me, Ray." 

"No trouble." Doyle smiled up at him." At least, no more than you usually cost me. Com'on Bodie...it'll help." 

"Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll just take a shower, then lie down for a bit." 

Instantly concerned, Doyle scrambled to his feet just in time to get his hands under Bodie's elbows as he rose too quickly and staggered. 

"I can manage." Bodie disengaged Doyle's grip and walked, carefully, to the patio door. There he paused, one hand on the metal frame, and looked back, his grin wide and wicked. "Hey, look, Mummy, I can walk all by myself," he announced, then exited, making clucking noises. 

Following him into the bungalow, a couple of minutes later, Doyle paused in the hallway and listened for sounds of life. Only when he was reassured by the hiss and splatter of the shower did he move into the kitchen. 

 

The rain hissed down, clattering on the muck shifter's sides and sending droplets leaping in the standing water like a whole shoal of rising trout. It streamed over the mud that shone a sickly yellow-brown in the light of the torch, and it stung the back of Doyle's neck, trickling down behind his collar, adding to his discomfort. Jackson had been gone for a long time. One hour...two...? Doyle wasn't sure, but he was sure that Bodie's condition was deteriorating. How long had he been lying here? And just how long was that fucking rescue party going to take? 

Bodie had been mumbling to himself for some time, but, quite suddenly, his words were clear. "Ray...Ray...?" 

Encouraged by this sign of lucidity, Doyle bent closer, but Bodie's eyes were still closed, and his skin was running with sweat as well as rain, despite the chill winter night. 

"I'm here," Doyle soothed. "Shhh. Lie still. It's all right, mate. I'm here." 

"Ray..." Bodie's head thrashed against Doyle's thighs, and his partner cupped hands around his face to try and stop the violent movement, stubble scratching his fingers as Bodie fought the restraint.

"I'm here, Bodie. Quiet...quiet. Shhhh. Everything's going to be fine." 

"Hurts...Can't tell...s'secret. Funny...y'know...great joke...Why _him_? Gotta protec' 'im...Can' let 'im know...lose 'im...can' lose 'im...Take...what' c'n get...Oh, Christ, s'not much...Grea' joke..." He began to giggle hysterically. 

"Stop it Bodie. _Stop it_ ," Doyle pleaded, recognizing delirium and knowing there was no way he could help. "Quiet. Go to sleep. It's going to be all right. I'll be here." 

"Why's...no-one laughin'? Greeks 'ad righ' idea...shot an...arrow in th' air...fell...t'earth...righ'...righ' through heart..." Bodie's sniggers died into sobs, then into exhausted panting. 

Doyle continued his litany of reassurance, but his mind was elsewhere. For the first time, there was mystery in the familiar figure resting against him, remoteness in the huddled body painted in the sombre tones of sodden blue jacket and dark brown hair against the ochre-streaked amber of the mud. 

 

Doyle halted in the doorway, stilled by a feeling of déjà vu whose source he could not identify. Bodie's sleeping figure, sprawled out across the bed, the blue bathrobe a pool of darkness on the warm brown and orange counterpane, seemed distanced from him by more than a few feet of carpet and the barriers of sleep, though its vulnerability brought a flood of newly familiar tenderness, followed by equally familiar guilt. 

 

It's all my fault, Doyle thought, as he contemplated the inexorable logic which led to a conclusion that had shaken the foundations of his existence. I should have seen what was happening to him...to us. How could I have been so blind, so stupid? And if I couldn't see something that obvious, how much more have I missed? And how much have I hurt him? 

Still far to self-consciously aware of the weight of Bodie's head in his lap, he looked down at him and, as the last flickers of the fading torchlight emphasized the shadows on the pain-drawn face, pity finally overwhelmed his disgust. He could – must – swallow his revulsion and reach out to help. 

 

Doyle stifled his unease and stepped into the room, crossing to the bed and easing Bodie into a more comfortable position, noticing, once again, the new gauntness of the body under the robe. He knew he could remedy that, but what about Bodie's hidden emotional needs? And what about his own? 

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he studied the sleeping face, just as he had done so many times at the hospital. 

I thought you were invulnerable, you know. I didn't want to believe that you could be hurt, that you might need more than a guard for your back. 

So many things he had not noticed about Bodie until then: that his dark hair, browned now in the sunlight, was patterned by swirls of natural curl, that the corners of his mouth curved in opposite directions when he smiled, that his eyes were a deeper, richer blue than any eyes had a right to be... 

That he was beautiful. 

It was the final admission of his own feelings, that what held him back was not disgust but fear. He was like a man clinging to the edge of a precipice, unable to go back, unwilling to let go.

Bodie stirred, mumbling wordlessly, and Doyle leaned over him, fingers stroking gently across his forehead in an attempt to sooth him back into sleep. 

 

Doyle's fingertips brushed across limp, rain-soaked hair and hot skin, invisible in the night, now that the torch had dimmed into darkness. 

"Hold on, Bodie..." he whispered. "They'll be here soon, I promise. Can you hear me, mate? Have I ever let you down? Don't let _me_ down, Bodie. Damn you hold on..." Doyle choked on the word, swallowing the threatened sob. 

Oh, Jesus, why didn't somebody come? 

Bodie's movements were weaker now, his ravings reduced to the occasional unintelligible mutter. Doyle's own voice was hoarse from overuse, and he was shivering almost as violently as Bodie, his fingertips water-creased and bloodless, his legs numb. 

The rain had stopped not long before, but it had made little difference to their misery. The cold sucked away strength which Doyle knew Bodie could not spare. 

Then, suddenly, he realized that he could see his partner's face, a ghostly glimmer of white against wet denim. 

Dawn. 

Shit. They'd been here over eight hours. 

"Not long, now, sunshine." 

It wasn't a lie. Whatever happened, it wasn't going to be long.

Bodie hadn't any time left. 

The silence of the grey dawn was oppressive. 

Silence. 

He looked down. Bodie was still, his hand lolling to one side.

Panic gripping him, Doyle searched for a pulse, his fingers probing for the great veins hidden in the neck, for any indication of life. 

 

Doyle's left hand lingered on the sun-warmed skin of Bodie's neck, fingers buried in the silky hair, while his right hand caressed his face. Bodie had quieted quickly, and the touch was no longer strictly necessary, but there was an addictive pleasure in the contact. 

...the edge of the precipice was crumbling, but it no longer frightened Doyle, and the fall was suddenly inviting... 

Bodie hadn't moved; his chest still rose and fell slowly and steadily, and his eyes remained closed, but, somehow, Doyle knew that he was awake. He shifted his fingers to find the pulse in Bodie's neck. It was racing, matching his own. 

 

Doyle's fingertips rested on the carotid. He did not realize that he was breathing in time with the weak, irregular beat, each pause in the rhythm an eternity of tight-chested apprehension as he waited for it to continue, each new movement of blood bringing a wash of relief, all his being concentrated on willing one heartbeat to follow another, his world limited to that single, fragile link with his partner's life force. 

The banshee keening penetrated his consciousness slowly, growing in volume, vaguely familiar, yet totally out of place. It was with considerable effort that he placed it in the right mental pigeonhole. 

Ambulance siren. 

What the hell? 

Ambulance! 

Where there should have been relief, there was bitterness. Now, after all this time, help had arrived, too late. They had come to take Bodie from him, but death would probably take him first. 

"Please live, Bodie," he whispered. "I'll even sleep with you, if that's what you want, but don't die..." 

On impulse, he bent and touched his lips to the wet skin, far too hot against his mouth, tasting of salt and mud and blood. 

 

The lips under his were soft and unprepared, but his guess that Bodie was awake was confirmed by the surprised gasp that vibrated through his jaw and the palms that pushed against his shoulders in instinctive reaction. 

Then the lips parted, admitting his tongue to damp warmth, to a taste that sent desire shuddering through his body as Bodie's fingers clamped tightly on his shoulders, pulling him downwards. 

He slid his hands between skin and bathrobe, and Bodie arched his spine to let them circle beneath him, his own arms locking around Doyle's back, pressing their bodies together. 

...he'd let go, but he wasn't falling, he was flying... 

It took an enormous effort of will to break the kiss, to raise his head enough to look down into Bodie's face. The blue eyes were dazed and questioning, but Doyle senses hesitant joy beneath the shock. 

Bodie's right hand lifted to brush delicately through Doyle's curls, a caress that brought a gasp in response compounded of astonishment at the explosion of desire it detonated in his groin, and delight that the involuntary thrust of his hips was met by equal heat and hardness. As Bodie started to speak, Doyle stopped him with a featherlight kiss. 

"Shhh," he whispered against his mouth. "No words. Not for this. Let me show you." 

He was answered by a hungry kiss that held all the desperation of a man who has starved without hope. 

As Doyle's hands began the long-imagined exploration of the body beneath him, he felt Bodie tug at his belt, and shifted to help him, sharing the desperate need for the final barriers between them to be removed. 

When their naked bodies met, it was with a shock that rocketed down every nerve, robbing Doyle of every awareness save that of smooth skin against the hot urgency of his body, the terrible rhythmic pleasure and, far away, Bodie's voice gasping his name. 

 

"Ray. _Ray_." 

It was some moments before the voice penetrated the weariness clouding Doyle's mind and he realized that Jackson was holding his elbow, trying to attract his attention. The younger man's shoulders were slumped dejectedly, and he looked, Doyle thought uncharitably, like a lost puppy who had just crawled out of a drain. 

"I'm sorry. The damn car broke down and it took me hours to walk back to a phone, then the first one was out of order, and—" 

"Shut up." 

"Ray, I—" 

"I told you to fuckin' well shut up!" Doyle's hands were clenched inside his jacket pockets and the hurt look on Jackson's face did nothing to mitigate his anger. Feeling his grip on his temper slipping away, Doyle swung on his heel and walked to the top of the ridge, so he could look down to where Bodie was being eased from under the heavy vehicle. 

An ambulance man scrambled up from the centre of operations to speak to one of his colleagues, who was standing a few feet from Doyle. "They'll want the stretcher in about five minutes' time, Harry. Not that it's going to be much help to that poor bastard. He's not likely to reach hospital alive." His voice faded away as he and his partner hurried back toward the road, leaving Doyle to face the reality of a word suddenly as empty as the desolation around him. 

"I'm sorry, Ray."Jackson's voice spoke at his back."If there's anything I can—" 

Doyle whirled, fist lashing out with all his weight behind it, fury fuelling his strength. Jackson never saw the blow coming. His head jerked as it connected and he toppled backwards, arms flailing, to land, with a satisfying splash, in the water below. 

"You've done enough," Doyle growled, ignoring the startled confusion on the edges of the rescue party, and stalking away, not caring where he went, as long as it was away from all those damnably well-meaning people. 

Finally, he halted at the edge of the construction site, where the churned-up mud rippled into dull winter grass, a lonely figure shivering in the cold, smeared with earth and blood, blinking back tears as he stared up at the iron-grey sky. 

Somewhere, far away, a blackbird serenaded the morning. 

There was always hope. 

As weak sunlight began to filter through gaps in the boiling storm clouds, Doyle acknowledged that his old world was gone for good, but, as he listened to that lone, avian voice, he was able to build a narrow bridge of hope to span the chasm of despair, chaos and uncertainty that he would have to cross if he were to reach a new one. 

 

Somewhere, a bird was singing – shrill, clear notes holding not theory of melody, but encompassing all with its substance. 

It was a good way to wake, to birdsong and sunbeams caressing his skin, to the touch of soft hair against his cheek, gentle breath warming his shoulder, and to the knowledge that all the restraints were dissolved, the commitment made. 

He felt as if he had fallen into a new world. 

Content, secure, he gathered Bodie into his arms and rested in the sunlight, waiting for him to wake so that they could face this new future together.


End file.
